


Anything

by LoveChilde



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Academia, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Community: purimgifts, Future Fic, Gen, Life Choices, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6306739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveChilde/pseuds/LoveChilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>About ten years after the world didn’t end, Pippin Galadriel Moonchild meets an angel. Or maybe just a harmless homosexual. They have tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/gifts).



About ten years after the world didn’t end, Pippin Galadriel Moonchild met an angel.

She was still going by Pepper, though she hadn’t changed her name at 18 despite swearing she’d do so as soon as she could. By the time high school was over, she’d found she was pretty much used to her name, and changing it felt like a waste of time. Besides, it might have made her parents sad, and she didn’t really want to do that. 

At first, she thought the angel was only a homosexual. There were a number of them in the neighbourhood she lived at by the university, and for the most part they were good sorts. This one who sat down across from her at the cafe seemed familiar, and she thought she must’ve seen him around campus, until she realized that no, she’d seen him someplace else.

She tried not to think about that week, with Adam and Them and everything else. They barely kept in touch, these days: after years of awkward silences and Not Talking About It and therapy, Brian had enlisted straight out of school and was now somewhere in the Middle East, she thought. Wensleydale was at uni too, but not the same one as Pepper. They exchanged emails and Christmas cards, but that was pretty much it. None of them visited Little Tadfield these days if they could help it. 

Adam was still there, though. So was Dog. Sometimes, guiltily, Pepper thought that was exactly why they never visited.

In any case, she realized that the person across for her was neither a homosexual nor, strictly speaking, a person, just before he opened his mouth.

“Miss Moonchild. How are you doing?”

“I’m sorry?” It wasn’t normal for strangers to just ask her how she was, and Pepper was trying very hard for ‘normal’, these days. “Do I know you?”

“Why, certainly.” The - person, for lack of a better word- smiled ineffably. “We’re old friends.”

“We...are?” Maybe he was one of the crazy ones; the area around the university had those as well, after all. Best be careful then. “I’m fine, I guess. And you?” Careful and polite, that was the trick.

“Oh, I’m very well indeed, thank you.” The smile widened a notch. “Tell me, Miss Moonchild, have you decided yet what you intend to do with your life?”

She felt her mouth drop open. How did he know she’d just been thinking about that? She planned on lying, a small harmless lie, but when she opened her mouth what came out was “I’m not sure what to do with my life. I think I want to drop out of school.” She gasped and put a hand to her mouth, as if trying to push the words back in, but the- person- only smiled in the face of such a world-shattering declaration. “Why did I just tell you that?”

“Because I’m here, and I hear you. You’re not enjoying school?” Unflappable, he sipped his tea. 

“No-o...It’s not exactly that I’m not enjoying it. I like engineering well enough, and I’m not terrible at it, but...it’s not what I want to do, I think.” All her life she’d been geared towards doing the things mostly only done by men; engineering had been the natural choice, and went well enough with her high grades in maths and sciences. There was no satisfaction in it, though, even being one of five girls in a class of eighty and staying in the top ten percent for two years straight. 

“What _do_ you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” That was the problem. “I don’t know what I’ll be good at.”

“My dear,” for a moment her sounded patronizing and she bristled, but he continued smoothly, “you are Pippin Galadriel Moonchild, called Pepper by your friends. You faced angels and demons and helped stop the End of Days. You, my excellent and brave young woman, can do _anything you like_.”

She sat back as the words hit her in the face, and then somewhere deep in her gut. She remembered thinking just that, when she was a kid running with Them, imagining and playing in the old hollow by the tree. She remembered feeling like she could do anything, be anything.

When had she stopped thinking that?

“You know what? You’re bloody well right. I can do _anything_.”

“That’s the spirit! And what do you want to do?” The angel (there was hardly a point in denying it now; even if he was just a harmless homosexual, to Pepper he was an angel) asked again, grinning.

“I want...I want to end war.” She wasn’t sure where that came from, but something clicked in her soul, and she knew it was Right. Oddly enough, the angel’s smile faded.

“Still? Well, I suppose it was always your destiny. To oppose War, wherever she went. Might I suggest you start by switching from engineering to international relations?”

He paid for her tea, and they didn’t exchange any further words. She switched majors the next morning, and felt like a steam engine, charging ahead with a merry whistle.

Watch out War, Pepper’s coming for you.

**Author's Note:**

> Pepper is the counter to War, as the other Them are the counters to the other Horsemen.


End file.
